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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Great Find: 60Second Recap

We've gone over teacher sharing before. Since this is a blog for and about teachers, I thought it only fair to do some sharing on here. Great Finds will be internet resources that my coworkers or I have found that have proven valuable in the classroom.

Our first Great Find is a channel on YouTube - 60Second Recap. This channel is related to a website of the same name. The videos are actually about a minute and a half because there are intros to each video. Jenny is a young woman who creates summaries, trailers and analyses of great works of literature and records them in sixty seconds. She talks fast, but she packs in a lot of information. The trailers are great for using before students begin a well known (and supposedly hated) work of literature. The summaries are great for the end of the literary unit. The analyses can be interspersed throughout the unit to act as a spring board for discussion.

You can also share the website with your students. Jenny also provides resources on literary terms and how to write a proper term paper. The website can also be used as an inspiration for students. Students in our district complete independent reading every day. At the end of each six weeks, they are meant to do some type of analysis of the book they've been reading. After watching several 60Second Recaps, students could create their on series of 60Second Recaps over the book they have finished.

My coworker is reading The Crucible with her juniors right now. She's been showing the videos from 60Second Recaps with a lot of success. Even if you aren't a teacher, this might be a great resource to share with your school aged child if they happen to be reading one of these classics.